Doctors in south China claimed to have successfully transplanted the cornea of a pig onto a 14-year-old boy's eye.

The bio-engineering transplant was carried out by a medical team at the Sun Yat-sen University's Zhongshan Ophthalmic Centre in Guangzhou Province on February 25, reports the People's Daily Online.

Since the operation, the boy has slowly regained sight in his right eye, according to the article. If the claims are true, millions of patients suffering from corneal blindness across China could be helped.

Success: Professor Yuan Jin holds up the cornea he transplanted into the eye of a 14-year-old in China

The teenager, who is from Jiangxi Province, is said to be the first patient receiving transplant of its kind in south China.

Dr Yuan Jin from the Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center was the head surgeon of the operation. He said before the transplant, the patient was nearly blind in his right eye, he expects the boy's sight to recover to 0.6.

Speaking to reporters from the South Metropolis Daily, he said the successful surgery is an important step for blind patients across China.

'In our country, more than five million people are going blind due to cornea illness and the number is growing.

'This surgery means among the five million patients [in China] who suffer from cornea diseases, a third to half of them could be treated with this technology,' said Dr Yuan, who is also a professor at the University.

The same article from South Metropolis Daily has been published by the University on its official website as well.

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The unnamed boy nearly lost his right eye earlier this year when he was playing with fireworks and a firecracker exploded in his face.

He faced the danger of going blind after the accident and suffered from keratohelcosis - an ulceration of the cornea. His parents took him to Zhongshan Ophthalmic Centre under recommendation.

After just a week's treatment, he was reportedly recovering well, and his eyesight was said to be 0.1 in his right eye.

Doctor Yuan said the boy will need to use anti-rejection eye drops for at least a year after the operation.

During the operation, doctors extracted the damaged cornea - the protective transparent layer on top of the eye – and replaced it with the bio-engineered cornea named Acornea, made from a pig's eye.

Before the Acornea is transplanted to a human, it is decellularised in order to rid its immunogenicity, only the collagen will be kept.

This is set to lower the possibility of immunologic rejection and infection after the surgery.

Replacing the cornea improves eyesight, as well as relieving any pain and treats severe infection of damage that may have been caused.

A cartoon image from the South Metropolis Daily showing the process of the operation from pig to eye

Doctors in claimed to have successfully transplanted the cornea of a pig onto a young boy's eye (stock image)

In April 2015 the Acornea was the first such product to be accredited by the China Food and Drug Administration. After a decade of research, China Regenerative Medicine International (CRMI) put the artificial corneas into use.

It was recently exhibited at the 28th Annual Meeting of the European Eye Bank Association in January this year.

According to Chinese bio-engineering experts, their first choice was a monkey's cornea because they're more similar to human beings. However, because it's costly to raise monkeys, money became a problem.

Then they tried pigs, cows, sheep, chickens, ducks and geese and they found that a pig's cornea was the closest to human's and its viruses are less likely to get passed on to humans.

Cornea diseases are one of the biggest causes of blindness in the country, blinding around four million people.

New cases are reportedly increasing by 100,000 each year, however, only about 5,000 people receive a cornea transplant annually.

The transplant on the 14-year-old boy in Guangzhou was the first of its kind in south China, but it is not the first in northern and central China.

In 2010, Huang Yuanzhen from Hubei Province was the first person in China to have the operation, her vision has now improved to 80 per cent of the level of her left eye, reported the Global Times.

Since then doctors in the country claim to have performed 114 transplants, out of these transplants, 109 succeeded.